My new room crush

Following our visit to Nymans last Saturday I’ve a new room crush. A craft room has long been on my wish list, and MOH friendly-battle over the name of our study, or my craft him. He calls it junk, and so it goes on. But I think we’re in agreement on this new room, though I suspect he’s just humouring me, or, which is equally likely, has already realised a potential bike use!

Though in reality, it’s not a room we’ll have in this house, and in any future house it will probably be called a utility room. Which doesn’t sound anywhere near as much fun as a “flower arranging room.” I’m sure there’s a name for such a room, but my name is as descriptive as any.

We’d popped into the house for a bit of a warm up, which worked, and then headed upstairs to see the exhibition. As we dutifully came down the stairs on the route as directed we found ourselves in a room with shelves, vases, a sink and plenty of flowers waiting to be arranged. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t have helped much with that.

Though.

If I had a room I’m sure anything I managed would be passable.

Just.

Well, it might look a bit like this. But simple is good right?

And look at those taps. I’m a fan.

I’m also a fan of hydrangeas.

I’d forgotten quite how much so, until this visit. Do you ‘need’ a flower arranging room too? Yes, I thought so…

What a difference a month makes

* This post contains an item gifted by Tesalate

As I blew home earlier this evening along with, or rather what felt like against, the remnants of Storm Brendan I couldn’t help but think how different things were a month ago. And how much warmer.

A month ago we were in Barbados, where the temperatures didn’t drop much below 25 degrees, even in the evening. We were just starting to establish our routine for the next week or so; breakfast on the balcony, sun loungers by the smaller whirlpool-pools, which offered a bit more shade and respite from the sun as we read books and counted the number of planes landing on the island. A soak in the whirlpool when it got a bit toasty, lunch in the restaurant and back on the sun loungers.

You get my drift.

But it’s not our usual sort of holiday. Though it was much needed. We last went to Barbados in 2013 for a friend’s wedding, and after a pretty full on and less than ideal time at work. As it turned out when I went back to work at the start of 2014, redundancy was on the cards and it was very much welcomed. This time our trip was preceded by a stressful period at work for MOH, and of course, as these things do, he promptly caught a cold.

I love a bit of sun. Him not so much. So while a cold in the sun isn’t any fun (for anyone) it did mean we spent more time than perhaps I was anticipating. Which in turn meant my new Tesalate beach towel got plenty of use. Sadly not actually on the beach, as the sea was too fierce and was lapping up against the hotel’s boundaries, but it definitely brightened up my day, and my sunbed.

I do like a bit of colour, and here was plenty of colour - I loved it.

But it wasn’t just the colour I loved. It’s compact, and really does fold down to a size that’s about the same size as one of those A5 size paperbacks that you can buy in the airport shops before you leave the UK. And despite my misgivings about getting it back into its pouch, it was easier than I thought.

Now this seems obvious, but I’m going to say it all the same. It worked as a towel too, clearly not one of those white, fluffy, luxurious types, but as a drying yourself after a dunk in the pool. The fabric was absorbent, and given it’s lightweight - and the heat of the sun - dried quickly.

My only misgiving?

That’s not having an Instagram husband, and despite having lots of attempts, there’s few photos that are shareable. In fact there’s few that aren’t blurred or have some random person walking past in the background. And there’s none where my hair is pristine - that’s sunbathing hair for you right there.

I’m pretty sure though that my Tesalate towel drew admiration from other hotel guests, including MOH. He had a magic towel, which was chunkier in its pouch, and about a third of the size of mine. And no, I didn’t swap!

But I am buying one for our holiday in June.

I don’t think I can give the Tesalate towels a better endorsement than that. We’re not heading back to the sun - unless the weather in the UK plays ball - but we are heading to a cottage in the Lake District with its own hot tub. The ‘instructions’ say to bring your own towel, and to be perfectly frank, there will be little room in the car for two more traditional beach towels. These are proper sized towels that take up little room, work as normal towels, and so will be perfect.

MOH thinks he’s getting free reign on the design, but there’s so many lovely ones to choose from, that I’m less sure about that. But don’t tell him just yet!

* With thanks to Tesalate for providing a compact and lightweight beach towel for the purposes of this review.

Blinds and shutters with Thomas Sanderson

No doubt like me you've heard of Thomas Sanderson and their conservatory blinds and shutters and think you know their products. I did too, but when I visited their stand at Grand Designs recently, I realised that maybe I didn't after all.

It's been a long time since I've looked at blinds, and I think it's safe to say that I've never really considered conservatory blinds.  But with the work we have going on in our conservatory at the moment I was interested to find out if conservatory blinds really could be for us. 

I was surprised to learn that Thomas Sanderson have partnered with Laura Ashley to bring two great names into your conservatory.  There's twenty two colours in this range and while I didn't see them, I'm pretty sure the colours will be classic, muted, easy to live with and coordinate easily with every kind of conservatory decor.

There were a couple of other things I learnt on my visit too, and it seems that blinds are no longer just blinds. I expect the design to be elegant, and functional of course, but I never expected blinds to be full of innovation and technology.

The Duette energy smart blinds have a honeycomb layer, which is where the innovation comes in.  These two layers of pleated fabric offer superior insulation, keeping conservatories warm in winter and cooler in warmer weather - clever hey?  Someone's been doing their homework on the typical UK conservatory! 

Thomas Sanderson's website says that these blinds can "reduce energy bills by up to 25%" and as well as keeping the glare out they "absorb up to 45% of noise pollution" which is quite something.

The technology I mentioned before is two-fold.  Instead of manually raising and lowering your blinds you can opt for a remote control, which was new to me.  But even newer, and only to be expected is a new app.  I told you it was clever.

Shutters provide a completely different look for a conservatory and are also suitable for kitchens and bathrooms.  Thomas Sanderson have developed their LifeTime shutters to keep the heat in, to not fade or turn yellow from exposure or sunlight.  Which sounds exactly what you want, and like their blinds don't have to be boring, as the image below from the stand shows.

It was fascinating to learn more about modern day blinds, and both MOH and I walked away from the Thomas Sanderson stand truly inspired and wowed by the possibilities for our own conservatory. 

What's put us off even thinking about conservatories so far is thinking that blinds were fuddy-duddy, but these certainly aren't.  Another consideration we thought might make blinds a no-go is the width of our window, which is around two metres but we learnt that this shouldn't be an issue either, and the people at Thomas Sanderson's have clever ways around this too, if needed.

Since we've been back from Grand Designs we've given blinds in our conservatory some serious thought.  We are tempted but at the moment our priority is getting through this part of the refurbishment and it's something we'll come back to and give further consideration to once that's done.  The unknown though is the price, and while I understand that Thomas Sanderson is committed to craftsmanship and personal service, it would be nice to know if they're in our price range before booking a design consultation, which for me, is something I'd do once I was seriously considering taking this forward.

I know from our visit to Grand Designs that it's well worth talking to their people, not only were they well informed and knowledgeable, they were also extremely personable and proud of the company they represented.  And how a company's people operate tells you a lot about a company, I think.  So thanks to Debbs and her team at Grand Designs for making us feel so welcome, and for sharing their knowledge, it was much appreciated.

* This is a collaborative post but all views are my own.